ow settled down to the tradewinds and to the business
of her voyage. Later in the day another droger hove in sight, rolling
as badly as her predecessor. I threw out no flag to this one, but got
the worst of it for passing under her lee. She was, indeed, a stale
one! And the poor cattle, how they bellowed! The time was when ships
passing one another at sea backed their topsails and had a "gam," and
on parting fired guns; but those good old days have gone. People have
hardly time nowadays to speak even on the broad ocean, where news is
news, and as for a salute of guns, they cannot afford the powder.
There are no poetry-enshrined freighters on the sea now; it is a prosy
life when we have no time to bid one another good morning.

My ship, running now in the full swing of the trades, left me days to
myself for rest and recuperation. I employed the time in reading and
writing, or in whatever I found to do about the rigging and the sails
to keep them all in order. The cooking was always done quickly, and
was a small matter, as the bill of fare consisted mostly of
flying-fish, hot biscuits and butter, potatoes, coffee and
cream--dishes readily prepared.

On September 10 the _Spray_ passed the island of St. Antonio, the
northwesternmost of the Cape Verdes, close aboard. The landfall was
wonderfully true, considering that no observations for longitude had
been made. The wind, northeast, as the sloop drew by the island, was
very squally, but I reefed her sails snug, and steered broad from the
highland of blustering St. Antonio. Then leaving the Cape Verde
Islands out of sight astern, I found myself once more sailing a lonely
sea and in a solitude supreme all around. When I slept I dreamed that
I was alone. This feeling never left me; but, sleeping or waking, I
seemed always to know the position of the sloop, and I saw my vessel
moving across the chart, which became a picture before me.

One night while I sat in the cabin under this spell, the profound
stillness all about was broken by human voices alongside! I sprang
instantly to the deck, startled beyond my power to tell. Passing close
under lee, like an apparition, was a white bark under full sail. The
sailors on board of her were hauling on ropes to brace the yards,
which just cleared the sloop's mast as she swept by. No one hailed
from the white-winged flier, but I heard some one on board say that he
saw lights on the sloop, and that he made her out to be a fisherman. I
sa